Was/is the Klan a domestic Christian terrorist group?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

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21 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Yes
	17 (81%)
	No
	4 (19%)
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[el_bryanto]

1. I'd feel better voting mostly

Clearly in it's early and it's 1920s incarnations it was - and Protestant Christian at that (as one of the big enemies of the midwestern Klan was Catholics).

Bryant

[jwirr]

18. My dad told us about how he attended a KKK picnic in NW Iowa in the 1920s. He was 4 years old.

In our area it was not about black people. I was about religion - Jews, Protestants and Catholics. He was from the Protestant side. One member of our family belonged to the KKK and invited the rest to the picnic.

Years later one of my school mates wrote a letter into the local paper because he had found the white sheet uniform. He wrote about what his father told him. He was in the Catholic side of the KKK and his story was much like mine.

The KKK played the churches off against each other like the suckers they were. The KKK was about hate and money - they did not care about what they were preaching. My mother told me that most members were coerced into belonging in some way - often owing money to someone who would threaten them if they did not join. So they bought the sheet and never went to meetings.

I am not sure how the influence of the KKK ended but dad also told me about a cousin from the one part of the family that belonged to the KKK forgot he had a kind of bumper sticker/symbol on his car. He and his Catholic friend headed out to SD in the 1930s to go fishing and as they were driving along the highway another car pulled up beside them yelling and waving. As they pulled in front the cousin saw the same sticker on their car. Here he is with his Catholic friend in the car and the KKK hot on their trail. He was scared and did not know what to do - he finally speeded up and out ran them. Needless to say the next stop was to remove the bumper sticker. Our side of the family never let him forget his idiocy.

[Fred Sanders]

2. The giant cross on their robes is kind of a dead give away about who they THINK they are.

[davidsilver]

5. Yes, who they think they are.

[edhopper]

3. Is this

in question?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. Actually yes, but some are arguing that religion can't be a motivation for mayhem./NT

[edhopper]

9. Well

that is demonstrably false.

[el_bryanto]

17. Can you point to a link where someone is arguing that religion can't be a motivation for mayhem?

or this something that is happening in the media?

Bryant

[davidsilver]

4. I voted no as Klan membership and being a true Christian are mutually exclusive.

I should disclose that, as a Jew, this is my interpretation of Christianity - true Christianity.

Any true Christian must follow the numerous teachings of Christ to help the poor and downtrodden.

[JustAnotherGen]

13. I'm a UU

There are two key reasons I left Christianity. The first was a deep rejection of the supernatural. I grew up as a Baptist and attended a Catholic high school and university. To reject the supernatural is to reject the trinity which is at the core of Christianity. Arius at the Council was the loser in the debate . . .

That lead to what we now call Coptic Christians -

And the first Protestants (Arians) which formed the basis for the Universalist - JC was a human - UU Church which many former Christians find our home in today.


The second reason - a few too many Passovers with my mom's paternal grandparents. . JC was a Jewish man, who died a Jewish freedom fighter, and that is the only way I can conceive of him.

[Igel]

19. That's a nice innoculation.

I've heard people claim the same about every religion. I've been told that Communism is all good, because any country that does bad obviously isn't "truly" communist.

I put this in the "no true Scotsman" category.

The KKK wasn't Xian. Kahane wasn't really Jewish (in the sense of 'religion').

One has to find a definition and stick with it for a given context--and it's a good idea to go with commonly accepted definitions, to boot. Personal, idiosyncratic definitions are fine for inner monologues but no so good even for dialogues.

[SwankyXomb]

28. That may be true

But ask a thousand Klansmen, and every last one of them will loudly proclaim himself a Christian.

[davidsilver]

31. There are also many Corporatist Third-Wayers who claim to be Democrats

but they are not. To me, claiming to be something doesn't necessarily make you what you claim to be. I don't know of any legitimate denomination of Christianity which would acknowledge the Klan as a Chistian organization although, as a Jewish man, I don't claim to be an expert on Christianity.

[Boomerproud]

38. Exactly.

I apologize to the Christian churches who have condemned them.

[gollygee]

36. That is known as the "no true Scotsman" fallacy

And they absolutley were a Christian (specifically Protestant) organization. They were as much true Christians as ISIS is true Muslims. They called and still call themselves a Christian organization and consider their mission to uphold what they consider to be Christian values. Whether it fits your or anyone else's concept of what a "true Christian" to be is irrelevant.

[Nye Bevan]

7. Not sure that setting fire to the most revered symbol of a religion is a sign of adherence to it.

Kind of like wondering whether a person who burns a Koran is a Muslim.

Also, violent racial hated does not seem especially consistent with "Love your neighbor as yourself", the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Beattitudes, and pretty much any of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Of course, none of these inconvenient facts is going to deter the "all religions are equally bad" brigade.

[zappaman]

8. Absolutely.

Their whole reason for being was to terrorize people.

[REP]

10. Yes and No

Today's Klan isn't a centrally organized group. unlike the original one, which also had a religious identity. Modern Klan groups may ascribe to one or another sect of Christianity, Christian Identity or even Wotanism, a racist version of Asartru. All versions, though, are domestic terror groups.

[Behind the Aegis]

22. Yours is the best answer.

The historical Klan was definitely a Christian hate group. However, over time, as it fell apart, much of the original Christian theology waned. When the Klan started to reconstitute, it became a hate group that happens to be Christian-oriented (mostly). Meetings in the 20's through the early 70's were very heavily religious, highly Bible-based; today, not so much. In the above example, Westboro would be a better example.

[nolabear]

11. Well they ain't Rastafarians.

[jwirr]

12. That is abosolutely the stupidest question I have ever heard. There are over 200 denominations

in America. So I and my liberal church are guilty of everything those asshole rw churches do?

[Bjorn Against]

14. Unless your liberal church is involved in Klan activities then the question does not apply

The question is specifically about the Klan, it does not say anything about your church or any other church that is not affiliated with the Klan.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. Your logic is flawed.

Nobody is suggesting your liberal church is responsible for every deranged person who calls himself a Christian any more than the mosque or synagogue down the street is responsible for the act of every deranged person who calls himself a Muslim or Jew.

The point remain there are those that find in their religion a licence to commit mayhem, regardless of what that religion is.

[Igel]

20. You're doing the whole/part thing backwards.

Not every trait held by part of a group has to apply to the entire group.

The AME Church is historically black, probably still is mostly black, but that doesn't mean all Xians are black (or mostly black).

Charismatics indulge in glossalalia. It's not a Catholic or Methodist thing. But in some sense they're all still Xians.

My church (that I don't attend these days) keeps a Saturday sabbath. It would come as a shock to the Pope, the Bishop of Cantebury, and numerous others that they're sabbath keeping. (They'd rather say my church wasn't Xian, even if we do believe in a Jesus who was God made flesh, born of Mary, who died the third day for our sins and was resurrected to sit at the right hand of God.)

The KKK can be Christian in that sense but still not be representative of the group.

We play the same game with Muslim terrorists. They're not true Muslims. At least when it comes to Xianity we're honest enough to say that there are different definitions: Do we have a minimal definition, rely on self-definitions, or look at how different sets of doctrines pattern? Do we judge Xianity based on comparison with other groups who call themselves Xian, or compare and contrast with groups that say they're not Xian?

So I can call the KKK Xian while at the same time saying that I don't even think the Pope is Xian or MLK was Xian, so there's no chance in hell the KKK was Xian. Whatever its roots were, what different Klan groups were like, how they merged, split, and transformed both on their own terms and in the public's mind.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

23. That was the point I was trying to make.

My mom was Russian Jewish. My dad was italian-Roman Catholic. They both believed in God in a loosey-goosey kind of way, like a lot of folks do. I chose my own way. I was baptized in a fundamentalist Baptist church when I was fourteen years old. Although I rejected fundamentalism a long, long time ago I remained friends with the minister who baptized me some thirty years later. My dad died when I was fourteen so he and the deacons treated me like a surrogate son. How could anyone not be impressed by that?

Where is all this going? His views are absolutely antedeluvian.

I also have a close friend who is a minister in the United Church Of Christ...She marries same sex couples.

He would say she is definitely a apostate except he doesn't get to decide who is and isn't a Christian any more than you or I or anybody.

P.S. So culturally, religiously whatever I'm Jewish, Italian, Christian whatever and I'm fine with that .

[uppityperson]

16. They used the symbols of Christianity and met in churches while acting contrary to Christianity

So it depends. Does simply calling yourself a Christian make you one or do you need to act in the way of Jesus to be one? IMO, it is the acts, not the labeling, that define you as being a Religious Person.


KKK was/is a terrorist group.

[Igel]

29. The Klan was like Hamas.

It's a terrorist group and was.

At the same time, it was a response to outsiders and perceived injustices committed against its constituency ... and committed many injustices on its own.

At the same time, it was also charitable group ... that was at times to outsiders very uncharitable, if not anti-charitable.

At the same time, it was a social, political, and religious organization ... that denied and would deny social, political, and religious rights and privileges to others.

Things like the Klan, things with a 140 year history that spread over tens of thousands of square miles tend to have a lot of different aspects to them. We outsiders focus on just a few aspects as primary and of interest to us and make a point of ignoring or denying that any others could have existed; others are equally justified in doing the same thing, but may disagree which aspects are "primary" or "of interest." The tendency is to make the opposing group as mean and evil as possible and make your own group as pure as possible. Even with nasty organizations it pays to remember this is a universal trait and draw a distinction between what the group is and the little bits we want to represent the entire group, to humanize them.

These days the primary purpose of every Klan group I've heard of is anti-something, as the needs it met at various points have been met. Still, not every Klan group is terrorist and engages in violence. Most groups and members just engage in some form of hate speech and bravado. And like many other movements and organizations, they may spew rhetoric of hate and contempt, but as soon as somebody's influenced by them they deny that they ever intended any actual harm.

[rogerashton]

21. I voted no because they are not particularly Christian.

Despite all the crosses. Just white supremacist terrorists.

Edit: further reasoning after reading responses. I do not mean that they were not "real Christians" or that "real Christians" would not be terrorists. Most of them probably were Christians, though I would bet there were some closet atheists and agnostics. I am saying that what distinguished and motivated them was white supremacism, along antisemitism and anti-Catholicism. It is one thing to characterize a group as "Christian" or "Muslim" and another to concede that their members are mostly or all "Christian" or "Muslim" since the first characterization implies that they are representative of the larger group. The United Methodist Church is a Methodist group. A club of Methodist business proprietors is not a "Methodist group" in the same sense in that many Methodists are not business proprietors. In that case, though, no harm is done by overlooking the distinction. When we characterize a terrorist group or a criminal conspiracy as though its members were representative of the religious or ethnic group, harm is done and should be avoided.

[gollygee]

37. They called and still call themselves a Christian organization. n/t

[nomorenomore08]

39. While many people would consider "white supremacist" and "Christian" to be mutually exclusive

there are groups who claim the mantle of both - see the Christian Identity movement, of which the Klan is a subset.

[rogerashton]

45. No disagreement --

I am saying that Christianity (or their claim that they are a Christian group) is not what distinguishes them as a group. White supremacism is.

By the way -- seems to me it is "white supremism," but the spellchecker insists.

[nomorenomore08]

46. True enough. And yes, it is "supremacism" when speaking of a belief system.

Although when speaking of social and political systems, "supremacy" is more correct.

[rogerashton]

48. Well, since the dictionary agrees with you, you must be right.

Perhaps lexicographers are not such harmless drudges, after all.

[hrmjustin]

24. Yes they were.

And the terrorists in France were Muslim.

They believed in an extreme interpretation of their religions.

[nomorenomore08]

40. Honesty is always better than denial.

[Gothmog]

26. Water is also wet

[cherokeeprogressive]

27. To the extent that ISIS and AQ are Islamic terror groups, yes. n/t

[libodem]

30. Oh, Hell, Yes!

Hate Group from Hell. They most certainly ARE domestic Terrorists.

As are any of those skinhead white supremacy survivalist motherfuckers.

No question about it.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

32. "Yes" and "arguably but basically not", respectively.

In the past it was a textbook example of a terrorist group.

In the presence it isn't, really - it probably has a disproportionate number of terrorists among its members, but calling it "a terrorist group" is doing mild violence to the language.

[uponit7771]

33. The KKK is the only federally designated terrorist group that can openly protest in America...

... i'm thinking because they're

[NaturalHigh]

34. No. A Christian follows the example of Jesus Christ.

Or at least strives too. Terrorizing people because of their skin color is in no way Christian.

[Katashi_itto]

35. This a trick question?

[spanone]

41. they seriously fail in their quest to be termed christian...they're chickenshits.

i'd call 'em a domestic chickenshit terrorist group.

[MFrohike]

42. No

Change it to Protestant domestic terror group and it's a yes. You don't have Christianity without the Catholic Church and the Klukkers were quite anti-Catholic.*

*It's erroneous to call it Christian when it opposed the vast majority of Christians in the world.

[Calista241]

43. is the KKK the same thing as neo-nazi's, or are we differentiating here?

Wikipedia has the last real crime attributed to the KKK as occurring in 1981 when they lynched someone in Alabama. Does 30 years of irrelevance still constitute a terrorist organization?

[nomorenomore08]

47. The Klan can be considered a neo-Nazi (or Christian Identity) group.

It all kind of blends together, especially in recent decades.

*Edit: I don't know about murders, but the KKK has certainly been guilty of terroristic acts (assault, arson, ethnic intimidation) more recently than 1981.

[former9thward]

44. No, it was a racist group.

And Christianity was an ornament. Similar to the Republican and Democratic parties when they open a meeting with a minister giving a prayer. Neither party is a Christian organization but they use religion as part of their proceedings.